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WASHINGTON — U.S. employment returned to its pre-recession peak in May with a solid pace of
hiring that offered confirmation that the economy has snapped back from a winter slump.

Nonfarm payrolls increased by 217,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department said yesterday, in
line with market expectations. Data for March and April were revised to show 6,000 fewer jobs
created than previously reported.

“This was a very solid report with no obvious warts to detract from the underlying message of
sustained improvement in economic activity,” said Millan Mulraine, deputy chief economist at TD
Securities in New York.

May marked a fourth straight month of job gains of more than 200,000, a stretch last witnessed
in January 2000, even though it also was a slowdown from the 282,000 jobs created in April, when
hiring was still bouncing back from a winter lull.

The nation finally recouped the 8.7 million jobs lost during the recession, with 8.8 million
more people working now than at the trough in February 2010. But the working-age population has
since increased

10.6 million while

12.8 million Americans have dropped out of the labor force.

The upbeat jobs report hoisted U.S. stocks to record highs. U.S. Treasury debt prices slipped,
while the dollar was little-changed against a basket of currencies.

The pace of hiring adds to data from automobile sales to services and factory-sector activity
that have suggested the economy will grow at a pace of more than

3 percent this quarter after shrinking at a 1 percent rate in the first three months of the
year.

Other data yesterday showed consumer credit in April recorded its largest advance since November
2001, a sign households were feeling more secure in taking on debt.

Last month, the unemployment rate held steady at a 51/2-year low of

6.3 percent as some Americans who had given up the search for work resumed the hunt.

A measure of underemployment fell to its lowest level since October 2008. The gauge, which
includes people who want a job but have given up searching and those working part-time because they
cannot find full-time jobs, fell to

12.2 percent.

Economists expect more previously discouraged workers to re-enter the labor force over the
course of the year. While that would be a sign of confidence in the labor market, it could slow the
decline in the jobless rate.

The long-term unemployed accounted for 34.6 percent of the 9.8 million jobless Americans, down
from 35.3 percent in April. The median duration of unemployment fell to 14.6 weeks, the shortest
stretch in five years and a sharp drop from April.

“We are making progress, but we still have a very long way to go,” said Ryan Sweet, a senior
economist at Moody’s Analytics in West Chester, Pa.

The return of discouraged job-seekers and drop in long-term unemployment will be welcomed by the
Federal Reserve, which has cited low labor-force participation as one of the reasons for
maintaining an extraordinarily easy monetary policy.

The workforce, which had declined sharply in April, increased by 192,000 people last month. That
left the labor-force participation rate, or the share of working-age Americans who are employed or
at least looking for a job, at 62.8 percent.

Average hourly earnings, which are being watched closely for signs of wage pressures that could
signal dwindling slack in the labor market, rose 5 cents, or 0.2 percent. On a year-over-year
basis, earnings were up a tepid 2.1 percent, suggesting little build-up in wage inflation.

But earnings in some sectors, such as mining and information services, are rising at a faster
clip.